After winning $10K at Indiana casino, man robbed steps from Chicago home

Naomi Nix and William LeeTribune reporters

Kenny Chan, 62, did not have much time to figure out what he would do with the 10 grand he won early Wednesday while playing baccarat.

Chan was on his way to his Chinatown apartment from a Hammond, Ind., casino about 2:15 a.m. Wednesday when two men — one with a gun — robbed him of more than $10,000 in cash and casino chips, according to police and his son.

“He was thinking about getting a used car, some Christmas gifts and paying off some bills,” William Chan said of his father, who speaks little English. “He could have used it for something good.”

As he walked to the front door of his apartment building in the 2200 block of South Princeton Avenue, a man came up to him and attempted toput him in a headlock while rifling through his pockets.

Chan began to struggle with the man, but seconds later a second thief ran up to him with a gun and demanded that he stop resisting, his son said. The men fled south on Princeton with Chan’s winnings from the Horseshoe Casino, police said.

During the robbery, the gunman struck Chan on the head with his weapon, leaving a small laceration, police and Chan said. Paramedics treated the cut on his head at the scene.

Security cameras at the front of the apartment building were not working, WilliamChan said he was told.

“If (they had) cameras up and running we would have caught the people by now,” said Chan. “To me, I’m surprised. I’m quite outraged.”

Chan speculated his father was either followed on his drive home from the casino or was the victim of a random robbery.

“At 2 o’clock in the morning this is a ghost town,” said Chan. “I can’t be confident that people would be willing to stick … their heads out the window (and intervene).”

Chan said Chinese immigrants who visit area casinos have long been targets of thieves who prey on them upon their return.

In July 2010, a 50-year-old Chinatown man was attacked when two men tried to rob him and another victim in the 200 block of West 23rd Street about 1:45 a.m., after the victims got off a bus returning from a casino, police said.

The sting of the Wednesday robbery was still fresh, but Chan said his father had no plans to leave the neighborhood where he has resided for more than 30 years.

“To be on that lucky streak and to have $10,000 in your pocket, and the next thing, it’s gone,” Chan said. “Yeah, you feel pretty sick to your stomach.”